


Attachment Message

by BlueColoredDreams



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Awkward Conversations, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Socially Awkward Tsukki, Texting, college students, giftfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 13:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9237425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueColoredDreams/pseuds/BlueColoredDreams
Summary: Long distance relationships are hard; they’re even harder when your boyfriend’s social anxiety makes phone calls nearly impossible. Tadashi isn’t worried– or, well, he’s not too worried. (Kei, however, is extremely worried.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rainbowbarfeverywhere on tumblr (who, if you have an AO3 account & want it gifted here, hit me up!), during the tsukyamgiftexchange. Posted first over there on the fourth-- figured I'd go ahead and put it up here because we're nearing the final due date for gifts.  
> If you haven't already seen what's been posted, go on and check it out-- there's LOTS of cute stuff! It's really fun to see everything come out!

Kei thought their relationship was always easy for them—as kids, as friends, teammates, whatever. Being with Tadashi never felt like work to Kei.

Tadashi always politely disagreed on this—though polite could mean a lot of things from Tadashi. The first time that Kei expressed the sentiment, sometime during their second year of high school, Tadashi had looked at him, mouth agape.

_“Hell no, did you—no, do you know how much I worry about you? You were almost hopeless!”_

Tadashi worries and plans; Kei frets and broods. Two sides of the same coin—and that, Kei thinks, is why it was always so easy. They both built themselves walls of anxiety, forgetting that because they used the same foundation, the other could see right through them. Sometimes, they didn’t even need words.

Tadashi always called Kei out when he needed it, and in return Kei fulfilled what Tadashi wanted most—he stayed by his side.

First in walking Tadashi to Shimada’s, then in staying around. Then he invited Tadashi to Akiteru’s practices. To dinner, to lunch, to a movie. Then by slipping his fingers gingerly through his friend’s, face ablaze; and then when Tadashi started to worry and tug away, by holding on harder.

Then, carefully, with his body turning into a bonfire of shy embarrassment, cupping Tadashi’s face with his fingers, leaning in—because he would never forgive himself if he didn’t let Tadashi know that none of it was platonic at all—and kissing Tadashi so gently that it was barely even a kiss. Of course, Tadashi retaliated by tackling Kei to the floor, but in the end, nothing had needed to be said between them at all.

They just knew. Not to say that later on, they didn’t talk to reaffirm each other, but in the instant it happened, they didn’t have to.

Every brick Kei silently puts into building up his own pride is a brick that is pulled from Tadashi’s wall of anxieties and worry. It’s embarrassing, but when he slides his hand into Tadashi’s at practice, the smile he receives from his boyfriend is worth Hinata’s ear-splitting screeching.

It’s not hard. It’s work, but it’s not _hard_ work.

So Kei finds himself at a loss, at eighteen, when Tadashi chooses an out of prefecture university. They don’t break up, of course they didn’t, but Kei feels lost without being able to stay physically near Tadashi.

“I don’t know what to _do_ ,” Kei says into his coffee three months into the new semester.

Yachi looks up from carefully copying her scribbles from her business and accounting class into a neater hand. “About him saying not to call? I mean, you can always Skype. Or just, _call_ ,” she says gently.

Kei’s face burns, “I—it’s awkward, I don’t know what to talk about.”

Yachi snorts and Kei busies himself with taking a long drink off of his coffee, burning his tongue in the process.

“Really? You don’t know what to talk about with your boyfriend of what, two years?”

Kei plays with the cardboard handhold on his cup. “I mean… I don’t… no. Yamaguchi usually leads the conversations or we would go out and do stuff and talk about that. Volleyball. Stuff. You know.”

“You’re always texting though?” Yachi inquires, pushing her notes aside.

Kei grimaces. “Yeah, but… it’s… well. I talk about the weather, mostly. And… it’s quiet when we do call. It’s not often.”

“Quiet?”

“It’s awkward,” Kei repeats again. He leans forward and leans his cheek against his hand. “It’s just? Phone calls are _intimate_ ,” he sighs.

Yachi gives a delicate snorting sound from across the table. Kei thinks she hangs out with Kageyama far too much these days, if she’s picking up some of his habits.

“Really—outside of being intimate, when else would you hear someone’s voice directly in your ear?”

Yachi’s snort turns into a dramatic sigh. Kei looks at her, and she frowns back.

“So what you’re saying,” Yachi says somberly, “Is that you don’t know how to talk to your boyfriend of a year, and best friend of forever. That you were too busy… being physical–” She uses air-quotes and Kei sort of wants to run himself over with a bus for phrasing the problem so poorly; “To learn.”

Kei groans. Yachi shakes her head.

“I can’t help with that,” she says. “That’s your own fault.”

“But—” Kei starts.

Yachi holds up a hand and cuts him off, “Ah! No. Look. Won’t it mean more if you figure it out yourself?” she asks.

Kei closes his eyes in a silent plea to not scream. He tries to think about it, then finds nothing worthwhile. “No, not really. As long as whatever it is works, I don’t care if it came from a monkey out of my ass.”

“Well then,” Yachi says primly. “Better hope the monkeys start flying.”

With Yachi not forthcoming with advice, Kei ends up calling Akiteru after ten minutes of awkwardly staring at his brother’s contact page, heart in his throat and palms sweaty. All the anxiousness is for naught, however, because the conversation with Akiteru ends up the same way as the conversation with Yachi.

Only, his brother outright laughs at him and calls him cute, something Yachi would never do. Kei wants to throw his phone in front of an oncoming bus.

Kei watches as students breeze by the bus stop he’s sitting at. Slowly, he feels his cheeks start to cool from their embarrassed flush; his phone is still warm in his palm. He watches the bus come and go twice, content to slouch on the old wooden bench in the spring air, watching the tracks of cherry and pear tree blossoms spiral across campus.

It feels almost like his friends and family are conspiring against him—not actively sabotaging the best thing that could have ever happened to him, but passively letting it slip through his fingers.

Kei misses the easy way he used to be able to talk to Tadashi.

The night before, he’d tried to call again, but could barely string two stiff sentences together after a story about Tadashi’s roommate. Tadashi had ended the call with the gentle suggestion that, “ _if you don’t feel comfortable talking on the phone, Tsukki, we don’t have to”_.

It’s not like Kei’s unhappy where he is—he _is_ comfortable. And it’s not like he doesn’t have things to talk about: he gets along with his roommate, and he likes his classes. He just finds it hard to talk to Tadashi on the phone, where he can’t see Tadashi’s face or lean into him while they talk.

Truthfully, it’s hard for Kei to talk to anyone on the phone; sometimes Kei realizes he can’t understand people on the phone, and he dreads when he has to ask Tadashi for clarification on something simple. He knows Tadashi doesn’t mind, but it still doesn’t make it any less embarrassing.

But mostly, he just finds it hard to be plain about it and be open about how much he misses Tadashi beside him.

He wishes he could describe how nice it is to just sit and watch people pass, how there’s a crack in the bathroom wall at the dorm that looks like a person at night. How there’s a bridge over a small drainage ravine that’s completely wooded, or the man who feeds the cats on the campus with just a backpack on.

All of these are things that Kei wants Tadashi to know about, things that if they were together, they would talk about without Kei having the explain them.  

Beside him, an intact flower lands on the bench. If they were together, Kei would pick it up and take it to Tadashi. They were especially bad about collecting clutter back in junior high, Kei’s mother eternally fussing about the rocks and loose phone charms that littered Kei’s laundry.

It’s this memory that gives him his idea; it’s so simple that Kei feels like an absolute idiot. He picks up his phone and carefully snaps a picture of it before sending it to Tadashi.

His thumbs hover over the keypad for a second; Kei closes his eyes and lets his muscle memory type for him, too embarrassed to watch himself actually write the message.

**_Campus is pretty—it’d be nicer if you were here._ **

Kei feels his face burn as his phone buzzes softly in his hands, Tadashi’s message back almost instantaneous. He’s so embarrassed at what he’s done—what if Tadashi asks him why he’s sending things, what if he says it’s out of his character? What would he say to that?

Kei huffs through his nose, biting the inside of his cheek.         

What if it’s only him who feels like this? What if Tadashi is only going through the motions to be polite, has gone off to college and realized that Kei’s not that great? What if that’s the reason Tadashi hasn’t pushed the issue of their poor communication skills—that he doesn’t want them to get better?

Maybe that’s why Yachi didn’t want to help. After all, she’d been closer to Tadashi than Kei in school… maybe that was still the case, and she was privy to more of Tadashi’s feelings than Kei.

Shame creeps across his face and down his neck, making his skin feel blazing hot in the cool March air.

_That’s silly,_ he tells himself. _You are being pathetic._

Because what if Tadashi felt the same way that Kei did, just then? What if Tadashi was worried about the same things?

Kei unlocks his phone and peeks at the message screen.

**Tsukki! I miss you too, but aren’t those pear blossoms! They smell so bad!!! Come here instead!**

Kei laughs, especially at the sticker of a sulking Pikachu Tadashi sends with his message.

_I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think your nose is broken._

**They really smell!!! Really! I promise, scout’s honor!**

_We’re not actually boy scouts, Tadashi._

And it’s as easy as that. There are no awkward pauses in conversation, no hovering thumbs or five minutes of just the writing animation. Just their texts, back and forth, just like it used to be. Kei finds himself laughing at his phone, a fond smile on his face even as he rides the bus back to his dormitory.

It’s easy to keep the conversation going, too—they only stop because Tadashi has to go to class, but they pick it right back up for the hour before Tadashi has to work.

Kei’s rewarded with a selfie of Tadashi in the back of the Starbucks he works at, hair pulled back and dark green apron crooked, with the caption, ‘wish me luck before the 5 PM crush!’ with a kiss emoji.

Kei feels a bit brave in his empty dorm room. “Good luck, Tadashi,” he murmurs into the voice recorder. Flushing and eyes clenched shut, he hits send.

His phone vibrates on his bed after he tosses it away in his flustered embarrassment.

“ _TSUKKIIII!!!”_

Tadashi’s voice trills back at him, followed by a string of exclamation points and hearts.

**You’re so cute ilysm!!! I’m ready to work my shift—no like, five shifts, probably!!!!!! No a million!!! All the shifts Tsukki all of them!!!!!!!  Thank you!**

Kei covers his face with his hands, ears hot and stomach squirming. He feels sixteen all over again, slipping his pinky around Tadashi’s for the first time.

But as embarrassed as he is, he’s happy. It’s the first time in weeks he feels satisfied with a conversation they’ve had, even if it was one through texts alone. He hopes that Tadashi is as satisfied with it as he is.

* * *

When Tadashi announced that he was going to a different college than Kei—and one out of prefecture, to boot—Shimada asked if he’d felt nervous about how it would affect his and Kei’s relationship.

_“Why should it? We’ll figure it out, I’m sure.”_

Big words, for sure. But Tadashi knows he was right to be sure that they would work it out. He’s not fifteen and worried about how Kei would take criticism, after all.

Not to say that the awkwardness of the first few weeks of being long distance didn’t upset him. But he could tell Kei was trying, bless him—Kei’s anxiousness and seemingly out of character shyness was nothing new to him. He remembers being twelve and curious at the way that Kei visibly paled every time his mother asked Kei to call his parents to ask if he could stay over.

Kei’s never been good with expressing himself honestly, despite how cutting and witty he could be. Tadashi understands that Kei’s never been one for phone calls either, but has always been good about texting, so when their texts started to devolve into just emojis, Tadashi got a little uneasy.

He’d gotten a lot better at worrying where Kei was concerned, of course. His unease had just started to evolve into serious worry, especially after he’d wearily snapped at Kei about not calling anymore, when he’d gotten a text from Yachi, who was busy laughing at how hopelessly smitten and worried Kei was.

**Don’t tell him what to do! Let him figure it out!**

_Of course I didn’t!_

And after that, Tadashi gets the first picture message.

He’s so proud of Kei—Kei who sends him pictures of everything and nothing, from cute mugs he sees in stores to fat caterpillars on the ground. He’s even gotten into the habit of sending selfies—and the voice messages!

Tadashi could live on those alone if he wanted to.

Tadashi replies in texts and pictures and short sing-song answers whispered into his phone. Sometimes he sends Kei silly pictures of animals and says ‘us’ with them. Once, he sent a picture of his socks to Kei, telling him that he wished Kei was around to cuddle.

A few days later, Kei sends him back a picture of him wearing the exact same socks, asking if that could be close enough for now.

Tadashi had to take a moment to scream into his pillow at how absolutely _precious_ Kei could be. After all that time chasing after Kei, the juxtaposition of having to gently lead Kei in their relationship makes Tadashi’s stomach flutter. It’s something that only he knows; only he sees.  

It’s July, now, and Tadashi stares at the newest acquisition to his file of Tsukki pictures. Kei, scowling with a cicada, dark and shiny, in his hands; the picture has obviously been taken by someone else, but Tadashi marvels at the sheer fact that Kei is holding a cicada.

He goes to reply, but accidentally calls Kei. He fumbles with his phone for a moment, trying to end the call, but it goes through before he can.

Silence for a moment, then Kei’s voice, hesitant. “Hello?”

“Tsukki!” Tadashi squeaks, “Um! Sorry! I didn’t mean to call, I’ll hang up—I know you don’t like calls!”  
  
“No,” Kei says slowly, “It’s okay. I… um… it’s you, so…”

Tadashi can _hear_ Kei’s blush on the other end of the line.  “Just let me know,” he says gently. “If you don’t want to.”

“No,” Kei says, “I um. Do. Want to talk, that is.”

Tadashi laughs softly, “Okay then. So you’re a cicada wrangler now, huh?”

Kei snorts on the other end of the phone. “It flew at me from the tree, landed right on my shirt. I… may have screamed,” he admits.

Tadashi snorts loudly. “Oh my god, _Tsukki_. It’s just a bug.”

“It was big and black and loud! I wasn’t expecting it!”

Tadashi cradles the phone to his ear, beaming as Kei’s voice cracks with volume. “Tsukki,” he laughs.

“Did you know cicadas can bite, Tadashi, because they _can_.”

“Tsukki, no,” Tadashi giggles, “Their little legs just scratch.”

“I got bit by one,” Kei says stubbornly. “I risked my _life_ for a picture for you.”

Tadashi laughs so hard his face hurts, eyes watering. He can see  Kei in his mind, the memories of Kei wailing as a ten-year-old that the cicada was trying to eat him blending with the affronted way Kei has recalled the story ever since. It feels like Kei is with him, warmth spreading in his chest like a fire.

“I don’t know why you’re laughing,” Kei finally pouts, voice breathy with the way he huffs.

“Because you’re hopeless, Tsukki,” Tadashi murmurs. “And I guess I am, too, a bit. It’s good to hear your voice, you know? Even if you’re completely over exaggerating.”  

Kei is quite for a moment. “I missed you, too,” he mumbles. “Sorry.”

“No, I get it,” Tadashi soothes. “It’s like me being afraid of public speaking. I wasn’t worried; I knew you would come around, eventually. I haven’t had to yell at you in a long time, you know.”

Kei laughs at the rib, then sighs softly. “I worried,” he offers. “A lot. I really wanted to… I just took it for granted that you’d always be _with_ me, I guess.”

Tadashi leans back in his chair, eyes closed. “When did you get so mature, Tsukki?” he teases.

“Oh shut up,” Kei laughs.

“Good fucking luck,” Tadashi snorts. “I have like, six weeks of shit to tell you, hope your phone’s charged.”

“Tadashi,” Kei admonishes, voice shaking with laugher. “Really?”

“ _Duh_ , yeah—okay, so like you know how I told you about my roommate? So, ok, get this—”

They talk until Tadashi has to leave for work; as he slips his phone into his back pocket to leave, it buzzes. A screenshot of Kei’s phone at thirteen percent battery and an eyeroll emoji—then:

_Call me when your shift ends?_

Tadashi beams at his phone, tapping a quick string of emojis in reply.


End file.
